A study last year by the department for business revealed that - finally - more women are taking the plunge and launching their own businesses.

The number is still pretty low - just nineteen per cent of SMEs are female-led, according to the study, but, more encouragingly, a quarter of new businesses - two to three years old - were formed by women.

I was fortunate enough to speak at an all-female business event held by the New Entrepreneurs Foundation last week to drive more women to apply for its new programme, which got me really thinking about how we can encourage more women to choose the enterprise path, like I did.

Something Anne Marie Morris MP mentioned in her speech really brought it home - women-led businesses contribute £70 billion to the UK economy. That is surely too significant a figure to ignore?!